The Tesla Roadster Turns Ten This Year

Set your way back machines to 2006, boys and girls, and enjoy this video reveal of the Tesla Roadster. The first thing you might notice is the poor quality of the video. Did we imagine back then that cameras would exist in a few short years that would make self driving cars possible? Heck, most of us thought Netscape was a leading tech company and was a good investment! Goes to show how much we knew, huh?

The Tesla Roadster came about because an engineer named Martin Eberhard thought electric cars would be a good way to wean the world off fossil fuels for its transportation needs. Even though the people at the head of the country have changed, that basic principle remains at the core of everything Tesla Motors does. At the unveiling, Eberhard told AutoBlog Green, “You can have a car that’s quick and you can have a car that’s electric. Having one that’s both is how you make electric cars popular.”

That statement was prescient. At the time, electric cars were little more than glorified golf karts. Eberhard knew instinctively that people love high performance vehicles. Even after he an Elon Musk had a falling out about how to move the company forward, that understanding remained at the heart of the succession of Tesla products that have made headlines — the Model S 85+, the S P85,  P85D, P85D with Insane Mode, and the latest full bore nutso car from Tesla, the P90D with Ludicrous Mode.

These cars that have appeared in hundreds of YouTube videos drag racing against everything from polo ponies to race prepped Ferraris and ignited a storm of enthusiasm for electric cars. If the Tesla Model S had the same acceleration as a Chevy Malibu, Tesla would have missed out on at least 50% of the favorable publicity it has enjoyed over the years.

Tesla founders Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning are still working in the EV industry. Recently they made a major investment in Alta Motors, makers of Redshift electric motorcycles. Ian Wright now makes the world’s most efficient electric garbage trucks. He thought Musk was wrong to pursue electric automobiles when diesel trucks are such a major source of carbon pollution. Only technical chief JB Straubel remains from the original Tesla team.

It is worthwhile to look back at the Tesla Roadster, if only to mark how far the electric car industry has come in ten short years. Who would have thought the day the Roadster first appeared that Elon Musk would be talking about cars that can drive themselves cross country a decade later? The changes between then and now have been dramatic, but the core principal of Tesla Motors remains the same — to lead the world to a fossil fuel free future, regardless of what the Kook Brothers may say.

More Tesla Model D Details Emerge

Last week, we reported the debut of the Tesla Model D, a dual motor version of the Model S that comes in three flavors: 60D, 85D and a high performance version, the P85D. Adding the second motor to the 60D and 85D is not done quite the way you might think. Out comes the standard 302 horsepower rear motor and in go two 188 horsepower motors, one in front and one in the rear. The two combine to make 376 horsepower, which lowers 0-60 times by about 0.2 seconds. The setup also adds about 10 to 15 miles of range over their Model S cousins, giving the 60D a range of 226 miles and the 85D up to 295 miles of driving at 65 MPH, or so claims Tesla.

The big news comes with the P85D model. That gets a 221 horsepower motor in the front and a whopping 470 horsepower motor in the rear, together spinng out 691 horsepower that hurl the 4,900-lb. Model S P85D to 60 mph in a jaw dropping 3.2 seconds! That’s a full second quicker that the P85S and 2 seconds quicker that the 85D. It also has a top speed of 155 mph.

How much does all this goodness cost? Adding the dual motors bumps the price of a 60D or 85D by $4,000 over their Model S equivalents. But the high performance P85D will set you back an extra $18,000 above the price of a Model S P85. That’s a considerable chunk of change for the privilege of getting to the mall 1 second faster than your friends. But still, even when fully optioned, the P85D tops out at just over $138,000, which is just a fraction of the cost of many so-called “supercars” available today. Meanwhile the two semi-autonomous autopilot features come standard on every Model S with the tech package, which also adds $4,000 to the MSRP.

If you are considering a new Tesla Model S or Model D, the company offers a whole range of accessories from the practical, like a winter weather package, to the silly, like red plastic brake caliper covers. You can browse all the selections on the Tesla website and then build your Tesla just the way you want it. Deliveries of the Model D are expected to begin in February 2015.